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Archive for August, 2013

Physical fitness is a “must” for professional athletes and champions, but what may be even more important, and a better predictor of their success, is their mental fitness.

How mentally fit an athlete is will benefit individuals in a variety of ways, such as:

Goal Setting

Several studies have shown a clear correlation between how mentally fit an individual is and their ability to set challenging yet obtainable goals. Athletes who tend to have a more fixed mindset or believe that they’re born with a natural or true ability tend to be weaker mentally. They’re more guarded about their deficiencies and are less or completely unwilling to try and improve them and are more focused on masking or hiding them. As a result, they won’t set the goals necessary to overcome the hardest challenges or hurdles.

Mentally strong athletes, on the other hand, are continually striving to improve their game. They know where they may be falling short, or where they need to work harder to knock the competition out of the park. So what do they do? They set goals. And they don’t just set a final goal, they’ll create milestones and steps that need to be reached so that they will get to that positive final outcome.

Confidence

The athlete whose brain fitness is just as high as their physical fitness is going to always be more confident than the weaker. Weaker mindsets are more focused on proving their ability. When they perform poorly, or when the competition is proving themselves to be the better, that athlete with a poor mindset will gradually begin to have feelings of self doubt and failure. Mentally tough athletes, however, have greater confidence because they recognize that there is always room to grow. They know that they aren’t “stuck” in their current state and can always become better.

Coping With Difficulties

Not surprisingly, the weaker athlete is mentally less able to cope with and handle setbacks. Athletes who suffer from mental weakness will immediately chastise themelves and beat themselves up emotionally when they don’t win a race or score a goal. The result: their performance immediately begins to decline, which leads to more negative self talk and self loathing, which leads to a cycle of further performance decline.

Those who have trained themselves to be mentally tough won’t let such things bring them down. In fact, not only will an individual with a high level of mental fitness then take charge of further improving their skills, but they will also take control of their motivation. They stay interested and committed to their growth and success every step of the way.